“Climate change impacts human life on all levels; we feel its effects as individuals, families, communities, and nations. As Wiebe notes, these effects unfold within staggered and discordant timeframes: unfolding both quickly and slowly.” Petra Chambers reviews Hot Mess: Mothering Through a Code Red Climate Emergency by Sarah Marie Wiebe (Halifax: Fernwood Publishing, 2024) $25 / 9781773635668
“Going to Seed is prefaced with an introduction that effectively situates the reader around Neville’s central thesis— consider what ‘being constantly occupied’ does to both an individual’s quality of life and the collective health of a community, society, and natural environment.” Natalie Virginia Lang reviews Going to Seed: Essays on Idleness, Nature, & Sustainable Work, by Kate J. Neville (Regina: University of Regina Press, 2024) $30.95 / 9781779400000
Essay collection relates the “great pleasure of strolling in great cities” and offers an appealing and illuminating “window into a wider world.” —Bill Paul reviews The Coincidence Problem: Selected Dispatches 1999-2022, by Stephen Osborne (Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2024) $24.95 / 9781551529653
Former government lawyer and author Richard Butler writes that there must be a better way than trying to implement the principles of the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) through law reform. He sees it an exercise in futility and potentially risky for reconciliation. Richard Butler presents his essay The Futility of Aboriginal Law Reform.
Reissued edition of the acclaimed, award-winning volume also reflects on the pandemic and MAID.—Jodi Lundgren reviews In the Slender Margin: The Intimate Strangeness of Death and Dying, by Eve Joseph (Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2023) $22.00 / 9781772142150
An “accessible, elucidating book that makes a persuasive plea for us to connect data literacy and human rights.” Plus, “a genuine pleasure to read.” —Jessica Poon reviews We, the Data: Human Rights in the Digital Age, by Wendy H. Wong (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2023) $35/95 / 9780262048576
Terrific essay collection covers agri-business, beans on toast, a century-old family recipe for trifle, gender politics, potatoes, and a whole lot more.
—Brett Josef Grubisic reviews Hearty: On Cooking, Eating, and Growing Food for Pleasure and Subsistence, by Andrea Bennett (Toronto: ECW Press, 2024) $24.95 / 9781770411
“As I pull off the road and down the drive toward my home on Sumas Mountain, where I will take a walk in the woods, there is one thinker’s phrase that nags as I come to terms with the reality of this doublethink, doublespeak, society. Thoreau’s prophetic statement in an 1860 letter to Harrison Blake, is all too relevant– ‘What is the use of a house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?’ Author and essayist Natalie Virginia Lang writes the timely essay “Living with Oil?”
Warland is convinced that as writers, “we must learn to live with profound vulnerability.” In doing this, we are filling in the lack of stories that others have been too afraid to tell. We become more resilient in ourselves as we learn from ourselves—our fears and identities—and we can start to tell authentic narratives that our world, culturally and socially, so desperately needs.” —Natalie Virginia Lang reviews Breathing the Page: Reading the Act of Writing, by Betsy Warland (Toronto: Cormorant Books, 2023) $24.95 / 9781770867031
“If all you do is read the textile manifesto, you’ll come away with a lot to think about. But this book really shines in later sections, where McCabe brings us the stories of the people who work on the land and share relationships with their fibre, all combined with useful reference material.” Sarah Thornton reviews Fleece and Fibre: Textile Producers of Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands by Francine McCabe (Victoria: Heritage House, 2023) $34.95 / 9781772034530
“If you’re one of those people who love reading about the province, this title is an essential addition to your bookshelf.” Dave Flawse reviews Points of Interest: In Search of the Places, People, and Stories of BC by David Beers and andrea bennett (eds.) (Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2024) $24.95 / 9781778401381
“Not only might dwelling inward and recognizing our place on this wondrous globe help us face and deal with our often buried or blurred anxiety, fear, and sorrow, it might help us find some faith and right action; Lilburn suggests it may show us the divine.” Steven Ross Smith reviews Numinous Seditions: Interiority and Climate Change by Tim Lilburn (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2023) $29.99 / 9781772127102
“Christina Myers’ new memoir Halfway Home is a raw and riotous account of what it can be like for a woman to move through her life.” Natalie Virginia Lang reviews Halfway Home: Thoughts from Midlife by Christina Myers (Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2024) $23.99 / 9781487012441
“Don Munday and his wife Phyllis Munday are best known as first generation west coast pioneers in mountaineering, but Don was also a fine writer. ” Ron Dart reflects on several aspects of mountaineering life in his “Three Missives from the Peaks”
“Taking into account all the studies of humanity Davis has done throughout his career, his pointing out the adaptability of human beings across the ages is a potent tonic for our collective cynicism and despair.” Trevor Marc Hughes reviews Beneath the Surface of Things: New and Selected Essays by Wade Davis (Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2024) $36.95 / 9781778400445
Canadian scholar and essayist Thomas Girard takes us into the future of typography, asking “How does typography play a role in what’s coming? There’s no better way, in my mind, than to talk to the experts.” Thomas Girard writes the essay Where we jump forward to…
New Westminster writer and essayist Daniel Gawthrop presents a strong argument as to why “now that the Canucks are facing their first legitimate playoff round in nine years, there’s extra motivation to finally bring the Stanley Cup to Vancouver.”
“The intermittent chronicle of British Columbia filmmaking offers many examples of motion pictures that could have been made, but somehow never were.” British Columbia film historian and archivist Dennis J. Duffy ruminates on the films based on B.C. literature that got away, such as Swamp Angel by Ethel Wilson, in his essay Knowing the Country: The Unfilmed Ethel Wilson
By turns funny and incisive, a debut essayist is a connoisseur of everyday absurdities. —Brett Josef Grubisic reviews Laser Quit Smoking Massage: Essays, by Cole Nowicki (Edmonton: Newest Press, 2024) $21.95 / 9781774390917
“Since the Oscars began in 1927, Canadians have been getting nominated and sometimes winning in most of the categories. Some have even been from British Columbia.” Ron Verzuh writes the essay Hello Oscar, Eh! The Canadian and BC Legacy at the Academy Awards.